Hooke Road Bumper

Just installed a Hooke Road front bumper on my ‘12. Thought I’d do an initial review as there aren’t many on this bumper.

This seems to be a China brand, got it for $540 on Amazon. It’s 1/8 steel and comes in 3 pieces (middle, driver side, passenger side) with all the necessary hardware. For the price, it’s good quality and shipped well packaged without any dents or scratches. It has a bedliner type coating. It’s definitely more for aesthetics than functional off-road use, but is stronger than stock.

It comes with LED pods for fog lights with exposed wires (no connector) that you can splice directly into your factory fog light wires. It’s actually pretty bright, but does have a less focused throw so may blind other cars. It also comes with a license plate bracket, but I didn’t install as Alaska doesn’t require front plates.

A few cons:
1. The bumper doesn’t wrap around all the way to the wheel well, so if you’re OCD it may bother you. I don’t mind it.

2. The bumper doesn’t go down far enough to cover the bottom portion of the radiator/trans cooler, so I’ll have to figure out a mod for that as Alaska uses gravel for snowy/icy roads. (If you have any ideas, let me know!)

3. The bottom of the grille touches the top of the bumper. It might just be that I need to adjust the bumper more, but I did see some other reviews mentioning the same issue. The hood closes, but I had to slam it closed a little harder than normal.

Otherwise, if you’re looking for a bumper more for looks and don’t plan to lay it down on boulders, I think it’s a fine, cost effective option. I got the rear bumper too, but haven’t installed yet.

Link:

$580 Hooke Road Tundra Front Bumper w/LED Lights & License Plate for 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Toyota Tundra, Textured Black Steel Full Width Bumper

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0C2KLMTG7?ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

Pics:

 

My daughter was just asking me the other day she wanted me to look for a bumper for her 11 Tundra.
Honesty, that it is one of the better looking bumpers I’ve seen. She won’t be off-roading, so mainly for aesthetics.

 

Amazon says it is now out of stk.

 

Yeah, that was my issue with bumpers. I didn’t like the look of many of the bumpers out there for the 2nd gen. This was the one I liked best.

 

I must’ve gotten the last one lol. They have a store on eBay too. You can get the front and rear combo on Amazon, looks like it’s still in stock. I got the same rear bumper pictured in the combo.

Link:

$1,080 Hooke Road Tundra Front & Rear Bumpers w/LED Lights & License Plate for 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Toyota Tundra, Textured Black Steel Full Width Bumpers

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C2KLXW8X/?coliid=I1LGYUCMY8AIBF&colid=2VEOR69AYYH3

 

I have a similar model from that company. Wasn't happy with it not fully covering the last couple inches to the wheel well and lack of attachment points for the plastic inner wheel well liners is subpar (IMO) but this brand is the only one I've seen that seems to even try looking OEM-ish. The LED foglights that came with the bumper burned out within a couple months. Seems that one of them had a bad seal around the front edge.

Do you have a panel that helps cover up the gap between the bottom of the bumper and the front skid plate? Asking because one came with my bumper.

 

Which one did you get? Mine didn’t come with a cover for the gap. I don’t see a cover on the stock pics either.

I’m thinking about getting a rectangular piece of aluminum cut out to cover up the gap. The mounting bracket had a flat surface that I think I could drill into and attach a cover.

 

I think a TRD skidplate would help cover the rad/trans cooler a little better. Or an aftermarket plate.

 

This one.

When I get the edges of the bumper "fixed" to match the wheel well, I could add the cost and background on the process to this thread, if that's ok with you, kanger.

 

Is there any kind of kit or option for an actual winch in there?

 

In the center front facing portion of the bumper there's a slot with a cover you can remove for a light bar. I don't think it's enough space to put in a winch. There's no included support to mount a winch either. The top of the bumper also does not have an opening to be able to access winch controls.

 

I have the Hooke light-bar bumper that came with my 2012 when I purchased it and am trying to figure out a way to get a winch in there. It’ll be tight and I’d have to get some 1/4” plate to reinforce it, but it looks possible with the right winch for the space.
I think the 1/8” steel is decent for off-road protection… it’s not like I’ll be rock-crawling in the tundra. But it’ll definitely be better than stock for over-landing and mild off-roading. Keeps the weight down compared to the 3/16” plate bumpers too.

 

Any luck on ever filling it below the bumper with a skid plate? I can easily cut and drill some flat plate steel/aluminum, but making something custom bent sheet might be harder. Any idea if a flat piece of sheet would work?

 

I haven't gotten around to filling the space yet. A flat plate would look a little odd I think. For it to "look right", I think the metal sheet would need a slightly angled bend in it. Just guestimating, probably like a 20 deg bend. The mounting bracket of the bumper has a flat section that would be easy to screw the top part of a fabricated skid plate into. The bottom part of the plate may flop around a little in the wind, but adding mounting points to the bottom portion of a custom plate would be a little more complicated I think.